I recently bought a impressive half moon King Betta from petco, and very carefully introduced him into my 48 gallon aquarium with 1 cichlid(my avatar) and a large pleco. My new Betta seems happy, and I added a few silk plants at the surface over a large plant to be a little safe haven for him to feel nice and secure, as well as a place that blocks any current created by the power filter and aeration.

I've breed a few fish, the first being sword tails many years ago, and more recently my red/blood parrot and convict cichlid(my current cichlid is one of their offspring,her name is Malina) and was wondering if I could do the same with my new Betta.

He seems to be more interested in exploring the aquarium and protecting his territory than building a bubble nest so I bought a female crown tail and put her into my fry container that sits in the tank (it's 5X5X12" and has slits at either end, this is only a temporary container to see if it interested the male at all) and he seemed interested at first, then went back to doing his own thing. every once in a while he comes back and they flare their gill covers at each other.

Also, does anyone know how often a female would be ready to breed? one of the females at the store had the dark bands, but I didn't get her because of her small size.

Well, have you researched breeding Bettas? Do you have the live food cultures which take weeks to setup going? All the male fry containers? Extra 20+ gallon tank for growout without killing fry? IAL's? Genetic knowladge? Expirience in kepping Bettas? I know nothing about breeding chichilids, but I'm pretty sure raising/spawning Bettas is definatly more difficult than it is with swordtails.

Okay, just had to add int hat first part (= No, they can't spawn in a community, because they have to be conditioned in their own tank first. Then they need a shallow yet wide tank with hiding places and tannins and absolutely no current. Then you need to put the female in the glass and read body language not looks and release her. Half the time it doesn't work out, sometimes the Bettas are killed from owners not being home to seperate them (fighting fish lol). The easy part is setting this up, though.

Then you have to get the female out of the tank and medicate her as she'll be very weak and the male will try to kill her. The male will stay with the fry and might be an egg eater and destroy your spawn, or he might father them.You have to leave the lights on until they're free swimming a few days after hatching, then you have to feed nearly microscopic live food for at least a month as baby Bettas are this size: . Then you have to remove the father and give the fry pristine water without sucking them up. Then you need to move them to a growout tank/tub of their own for 1-3 months (depends when you add them) All the while slowely mixing between different types of live food and frozen foods. After a few months they'll begin fighting and you can sex them, you put the males into seperate fry containers, but you can house the females together.

I get the feeling you haven't researched it enough. I'm not even going to get into detail about breeding Bettas, but that's just to show you how much harder it is for them than, say, live bearers. Yes, they need their own tank, they'll be eaten/destroyed by the filter/starve. Of course just getting the Bettas to spawn is usually very hard...

There's my huge reply (= If you want to breed Bettas research more into it. It's hard work and expensive, but if you learn as much as you can it can be done. Again, sorry if I misunderstood the post and you actually have done your research, but the question just makes it seem as if you haven't. I hope I didn't discourage you from breeding but encouraged you to research lol.

EDIT: Also, you shouldn't keep a Chichilid with a Betta. Predator+Betta= )=

"have you researched breeding Bettas?"
I've done tons of research, buying/reading different betta books, websites, and more recently this forum.

"Do you have the live food cultures"
My friend breeds cichlids and would give me brine shrimp baby's/eggs

"All the male fry containers?"
not really sure.... I have close to 300 jars, but I'm unsure about using that because the fish wouldn't have any heat. if it's the summer that might be ok as long as it's not a heat wave. I've
"20+ gallon tank for grow out without killing fry?"
I have a 15 gallon available to me since my stepdad kinda sucks at keeping his tetras alive, as well as a additional 20 gallon I can set up.

IAL's?
I don't know what AIL's is :( it's an acronym right?

Genetic knowledge?
only a little from memory, one of my books has a little about dominant colors, and I have a few webpages bookmarked http://www.bettas-jimsonnier.com/genetics.htm this seemed like the most usefull to me, do you know any better websites/books on genetics? For the first spawn I decided not to worry about genetics, that I would just buy fish I thought looked good and be surprised by what traits were passed on.

Experience in keeping Bettas?
I don't have very much experience keeping Bettas, but I feel confident in my ability after reading so much about betta care, and knowing that I can find much more information in the different threads on this site that I may not of run across in books already.

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I thought it probably wasn't likely to breed them in a community tank but wanted to give it a shot anyway. with my cichlids (they laid eggs) I let them take care of their eggs and protect them in the tank with my other fish, and made sure to leave cucumber for my pleco to eat rather then the eggs during the night. Once the eggs hatched I moved them into a separated section of the tank and feed them tiny baby brine shrimp and small pellets until they were two inches long, then kept two and gave the rest to my friends/family who wanted them (they all wanted my "babies" lol)

I also decided that unless I move my cichlid I absolutely cannot release my female into that aquarium to breed even if it was possible. I bought my cichlid some brine shrimp squares as a treat and as my fish ate it in one bite I realized it was almost the same size as the little female and she would be hard for her to resist.

If the cichlid doesn't eat the betta the pleco probably will depending on what species.

My Pleco is actually to big for my aquarium, he's 13" and stuck in a 48 gallon(he grew into it) So my friend and I agreed earlier today that that we would watch each others plecos for a few years until I can afford to set up a really nice 100+ aquarium. Her aquarium is a 80 gallons with a little 5 inch pleco in it.

And now my pleco and have more room to grow and exercise, and my betta won't possibly be eaten while sleeping as a plus